


chicken noodle

by sulfuric



Series: totl verse [4]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M, its cute n gay, there's a mild home invasion scare, thomas is sick and newt takes care of him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 06:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9371876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulfuric/pseuds/sulfuric
Summary: thomas is home sick from school, newt comes over to check on him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so my two loves [antra](http://sapphicteresa.tumblr.com) and [angie](http://newtmnas.tumblr.com) are sick today so i wrote this to cheer them up. i love u guys enjoy the gay
> 
> also this is not proofread bc im lazy so read at ur own risk. part of the totl verse because i said so (like a lil more than a year before totl happens, eightish months after tracheal inflammation)

Thomas had felt it coming on for weeks, but he still hadn’t taken action towards preventing it. And now, he was most definitely paying for his carelessness. It had started out as a sniffle - just an innocent, simple sniffle. He hadn’t even given the thing a second thought; it was Winter and everybody sniffled a bit more in Winter, right? It surely couldn’t mean he was getting sick.

As Thomas usually was regarding matters of basic knowledge and common sense, he was wrong. Two weeks after that first fateful sniffle, he was lying in bed, wishing for death to come and take him already.

He spent the first two hours of his morning alternating between blowing his nose and coughing, then the next two halfheartedly watching netflix. Now, he lay flat on his back, trying to figure out what he did that was so terrible to merit him deserving this degree of suffering.

He should have listened to Newt. His boyfriend - god, it had been eight months since they’d started dating, and the thought of it still made Thomas’ heart race. Anyway, heart rates aside, his boyfriend had warned him this would happen sooner or later. Something about not wearing adequate Winter clothing - come to think of it, Thomas wasn’t even sure if he owned a scarf. He knew he had a hat for sure, but couldn’t remember the last time he saw it. He wondered if maybe doing up the zipper on his jacket would have stopped him from getting sick. Provoking Minho into snowball fights on the walk home probably hadn’t helped either. And helping Chuck build snowmen in the yard. And staying up all night to play solitaire online. And - okay, and whatever, he was an idiot, alright? He was an idiot and he was paying for it. 

Just as he was finishing up another round of coughing, (both lungs still  _ inside  _ his chest) Thomas heard the familiar chime of his house’s security system. Someone had just come into the house.

“Mom?” he calls, his voice thin and weak. A blurry glance at the clock on his bedside table tells him that it’s already 12:30. Maybe she’d come home for her lunch break? He calls out her name again, ignoring the literal knives tearing at the insides of his throat as he does so.

There’s no answer. It’s entirely possible she hadn’t heard him, so Thomas just lies back and waits. She’d probably be up in a few seconds to check on him. Then, his phone buzzes, lighting up the screen with an alert for a new text message.

 

**FROM: Mom**

_ Hey hun, won’t be able to make it back during lunch today. _

_ Try to eat a little something, and remember to keep taking  _

_ your medicine every 6 hours. I’ll be home by 5, love you! _

 

A mixture of confusion and dread washed over Thomas. If it wasn’t his mom, who was downstairs? He ran through the options - it couldn’t be his dad; he was away for a business conference and wouldn’t be back until next week. It couldn’t be Chuck, he was still in school. The only other people with a key to his house were his grandparents, and that was unlikely. 

Suddenly, a terrible thought comes to Thomas’ mind. What if it was a stranger? There could be a home invasion going on right then, in his own home, and there was nothing Thomas could do about it! He was completely defenseless - hell, he was dead already. He couldn’t even get out of bed if he wanted to. Thomas scanned the room for some kind of weapon, and settled on his laptop. He’d hate to see it go, but it was the biggest, heaviest thing he could throw at an attacker with such short notice.

Clutching the laptop to his chest, Thomas waited in silence as the stairs began to creak.

When the door opened, what it revealed was  _ not  _ what Thomas had been expecting.

“Newt?” He’d spotted the shock of blond hair first, dishevelled, and attached to a smiling face. 

“You look bloody  _ terrible. _ ” Thomas had to be hallucinating. Was he that sick? It was definitely not his boyfriend standing in the doorway, holding a steaming mug, the contents of which Thomas could regrettably not smell. He lay there, beyond confused, and Newt laughed. “Boy, you really that out of it, Tommy?”

Thomas blinked back into reality. “How did you get in my house? What are you doing? Don’t you have - don’t you have school? I’m missing school right now, right? What? Did you make me  _ soup _ ?” Thomas had so many questions.

“Your mum told me about the spare key like, last year, so yeah, erhm, I’m taking care of my sick boyfriend, yes it’s lunch but I’m  _ skipping _ ,” the last word was accompanied by a scandalized eyebrow wiggle, after which he continued listing off answers to Thomas’ questions, counting them off on his fingers. “Yes, you’re missing school, it’s Thursday so that means you’re also missing debate, and of course I made you soup, you lug.” Newt smirked at Thomas then, setting the mug down on Thomas’ desk. 

Thomas needed a minute to take it all in. After a second, he smiled. “Chicken noodle?”

Newt rolled his eyes. “‘Course it’s chicken noodle,” he says, as if the assumption he may have brought any other kind of soup was some gross insult.

“Thank you,” Thomas said, and genuinely at that. His boyfriend was  _ awesome. _ He sat up, taking the mug of soup from Newt’s outstretched hands. He nearly moaned as the first spoonful went down his throat - he really, really loved chicken noodle soup, and this one was just perfect. A moment later, a thought popped into Thomas’ head. “Did you  _ walk  _ here?” His house was nearly  a twenty-five minute walk from the school, and lunch started at 12:15. Newt would have had to leave class early if he’d gotten to Thomas’ for 12:30.

“No, Minho drove me,” Newt explained, “said he didn’t wanna come in and catch whatever plague you have. He - if I remember right, his exact words were ‘I’m not gonna turn into a fucking snot zombie two weeks before pre-season’.” 

“Jesus,” Thomas said, almost laughing into his soup. Sounded about right. And Newt’s American accent wasn’t all too bad, either. He turned to Newt. “And you’re not worried about becoming a snot zombie? What if I infect you?”

“Eh, not too worried about that.”

“Oh?” Thomas raised an eyebrow. “You seemed pretty worried back when I refused to wear a hat outside!”  
Newt doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, that’s ‘cause you’re an idiot,” he said, giving Thomas a pointed look. 

Thomas couldn’t argue with that.

 

About twenty minutes after the last drop of soup is gone, a shiver ran down Thomas’ spine. Newt looked at the pile of blankets (one duvet, one ratty knitted thing, and one fluffy one Newt had gotten Thomas from the bookstore for his birthday) and then at Thomas. “Are you cold?” 

“Eh,” Thomas said, as noncommittally as possible, but the second shiver gave him away. 

Newt sighed in exasperation. “Christ, Tommy, you’re -” he paused to sigh again, slightly less dramatic than the one preceding it. “Move over,” he said finally, almost defeated. 

“What?”

“Move over!” Newt said, shooing Thomas toward the wall as if he were some petulant child. 

Thomas scooted farther from Newt, cautiously. He had no idea what was going on - until Newt settled himself down on the side of the bed. “No way! You’re gonna get sick!”

“Oh, boo hoo,” Newt teased, tucking himself under the blankets and shifting to curl himself around Thomas. 

Thomas tried to protest, but the warmth of Newt pressed against his back was much, much too comforting to resist. It was like getting a hug from a radiator, but a million times better. 

“Your hands are like icicles,” Newt murmured into his shoulder, lips moving on Thomas’ skin. 

Thomas was already falling asleep. “Melt me,” he said, not even caring how ridiculous it sounded. He was pretty sure he heard a snort from Newt just before his eyelids drooped closed for good. It wasn’t his fault that warmth was like an instant sleeping pill. And even his throat was starting to feel better, after the soup. He drifted off into sleep with thoughts of Newt and cures.

 

By the time Thomas woke up, he was cold again. He’d almost jumped to the conclusion that there was now something  _ really  _ wrong with him, but then he realized it was just one thing: Newt was gone. Thomas frowned. He knew Newt probably had better things to do than catch his boyfriend’s cold, but  _ still _ . It was nice while it lasted.

Still groggy, Thomas stumbled to the door, kitchen in mind His throat felt like sandpaper again. After managing to get into the hallway, Thomas heard voices from below. Confused and with no concept of time, he followed them, forgetting about that glass of water.

Miraculously, he ended up in the kitchen anyway. And sitting there, a trio of mugs sitting on the counter, were Newt, Chuck, and his mom! Just when Thomas thought the day couldn’t get any stranger.

“Five?” he said, wanting to know why his mom was home already. It was terrible, but it got the message across alright enough, apparently. Everyone started laughing. 

The rest of the night, though hazy, was actually kind of nice - for a sick day, at least. Newt (who had apparently gone to pick up Chuck at school, bless his soul) stayed for dinner, dessert, and board games. Thomas had been heavily drugged throughout each activity but he seemed to be having fun, at least judging by his family’s reactions. All around, it was a very strange day. Strange, but good.

 

The following Monday, Thomas was finally ready to go back to school. 

And of course, Newt was sick. 

  
  



End file.
